Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State to the Chamber and thank him for being here for this very important debate. I thank my Fianna Fáil colleagues for putting forward this motion today.

As has been said, it is important to acknowledge that what happened on 7 October was wrong. It was outrageous. More than 2,000 people were murdered.Hostages were taken and that was all done by a terrorist organisation, Hamas. Those hostages need to be released but we need to see a ceasefire. It is important to say that because it is true. Sometimes, on international media, Irish politicians on all sides are portrayed as people who do not recognise that what happened on 7 October was wrong.

Since then, over the last two years, with regard to the reaction we have seen and the level of response from Israel, any fair-minded person in the world could not but be outraged by it. As Senators O'Loughlin and Comyn have said, Ireland and the Irish people have led as a nation in their outrage. There are a number of things we have done as a country that are now being followed by other countries, which is very positive, such as recognising Palestine as a state and appointing a Palestininian ambassador to Ireland. We have seen recently that Canada, France, the UK and many others have started on that journey, which is incredibly positive because the more that come on board, the stronger that message is.

We on the foreign affairs committee worked hard over two or three months on pre-legislative scrutiny of the occupied territories Bill. That needs to be legislated for as soon as possible. There was an awful lot of good work done on that. Just like we have seen with Ireland recognising Palestine as a state, delivering on the occupied territories Bill gives the opportunity to other countries to follow Ireland's lead on it. What is very heartening as well is the diplomacy behind the scenes with regard to the EU association agreement. That is a very powerful tool against Israel. Even opening up the conversation about reviewing that agreement with Israel is very important.

What has happened in Gaza in the last couple of months in particular, but almost since 7 October 2023, is genocide. That has been called out by Ireland from the very start. The images are abhorrent and we as a country need to be as vocal as we can in supporting the Palestinian people. In our foreign affairs committee meeting yesterday, we had Mr. John Whyte from UNRWA, who gave us an understanding of what it is like on the ground for workers from UNRWA and for the people of Palestine. He was talking about the State of Palestine being the size of Louth and how 2.1 million people are confined to 18% of the Gaza area. Aid, food and medical supplies are being blocked by Israel from coming in to help those people. We need to call that out. You could not but be emotionally impacted by the contribution of John Whyte yesterday, in my view, if you watched it. He and the UNRWA staff are so committed to trying their best to support the Palestinian people.

We have, as a country and a State, done a number of significant things over the last number of months but there is always more we can do. There is certainly more we can do here, and there is certainly more we can do to convince, in particular, some of our European colleagues and friends to be able to stand up and call this out for what it really is, which is genocide. It is wrong, and it must stop.